The present invention generally relates to apparatus and methods for fabricating food items, particularly to apparatus and methods for fabricating rolled food items, and more particularly to apparatus and methods for fabricating a coil of food supported on support material.
The sale of snack-type food products is a highly competitive business. In addition to the particular food components, increasingly the novelty and play value of the product are important in the marketability of any particular food item. For example, fruit-based snack products such as FRUIT ROLL-UPS.TM. fruit products have found wide market acceptance. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,175 recognized the enhanced marketability of chewing gum in the form of a rolled-up tape allowing the consumer the chance to break off the desired size of piece to chew, saving the rest for later.
While rolled food items are known, many foods such as dehydrated fruit puree do not lend themselves to forming rolled food items where the food is in a strip of a thinness generally requiring external support, with the support material and the food supported thereon being rolled into a coil creating a novelty form of merchandizing for that food.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide novel apparatus and methods for the fabrication of food items, which in the preferred form are rolled, and which in the most preferred form include a thin strip of food coiled with a strip of support material.
Another object of the invention is to provide apparatus and methods where the food is deposited as strips on the support material such that longitudinal cutting of the food to form the strips is not required. In this regard, an aim of the invention is to deposit the food as strips on a continuous sheet of support material, with the support material being cut into strips between the strips of food supported thereon.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide apparatus and methods where multiple strips having widths which are minimal relative to their lengths are simultaneously rolled into a coiled condition without interconnection of the strips.